Griffiths's breath reeked heavily of liquor as he stood next to Arkaneh. The two looked at a map of the nearby districts, which included Axfield, Fraenon Hill, Rockbury and Westden Fells. Men of Midas had two main outposts from which they spread their presence. The one in the abandoned factory in Ravenwey Burrows, Axfield, was responsible for every crime that involved a golden mask in those districts. The other outpost was located in an old building in Oakneil, Waterchester, not far from the offices of Reus's record label, Golden Key Records, in Basilham, Rockbury. From that outpost, their reach spread to Waterchester, Fallhalt, and Silvercoast.
In total, the organization's manpower reached about 7 dozen in number, but only less than 30 of the men worked from the Ravenwey Burrows outpost, while the rest were run from the Oakneil one. Both lieutenants, Connor Griffiths and Talimay Singh, who was still absent in grieving over her lost brother, were in charge of the Ravenwey Burrows outpost and the Oakneil one respectively. With Talimay currently away, Griffiths was in charge of Oakneil as well. The lieutenants were responsible for making sure the men were kept in line and either approving or disapproving every activity that came up on the board, occasionally with the advice of the other lieutenant. Reus's father, Joseph Mallistrom, was the one who first gave his lieutenants sanction rights over every illegal action that the organization was thinking to take. That method, which had been preserved to that day, made sure no one in Men of Midas would go on to do something foolish that might jeopardize the organization and its ringleader.
Reus never goes anywhere near the outposts, leaving their operations in the hands of his lieutenants, while getting constant updates to keep himself informed of the organization's every aspect. He refuses to associate himself with Men of Midas in the public eye, instead using his time to tend to his more legitimate businesses.
"So why are we so sure that this rat belongs to this outpost and not the other one in Oakneil?" Griffiths asked Arkaneh, stroking his white goatee. "I mean, we've had Justicars attacks on almost every district we're in."
"I've been doing some research," Arkaneh replied. "According to the papers and online news media, Men of Midas have had 14 run-ins with the Justicars over the last couple of months alone." He took a few red-colored pins in his hand and placed them on the map accordingly. "3 in Axfield, 4 in Rockbury, 2 in Fallhalt and 5 in Waterchester." The red pins stood boldly in their rightful districts. "The more interesting thing about this is the timing of these encounters. You see, the ones in Fallhalt and Waterchester happened one after the other, and the ones in Axfield and Rockbury all happened after them."
"Well, what does that mean to us?"
"Fallhalt and Waterchester fall under the jurisdiction of the Oakneil outpost while the other ones fall under that of the Ravenwey Burrows outpost. That means our rat used to be in the Oakneil outpost and later moved into the other one. The same thing happened a few months before that as well. We've had a total of 8 consecutive encounters in the jurisdiction of the Ravenwey outpost and 9 consecutive ones in the jurisdiction of the Oakneil outpost, which means our rat moved again between the outposts."
"But… how can that be?"
"You tell me. Lieutenants are in charge of any transfers. Have we had anyone transferring between the outposts?"
"Transfers happen very rarely. Last time we had one was almost 2 years ago."
"Then the case isn’t that our leaker simply switched outposts. That can mean only one thing: we have more than one rat and they're bugged somehow, most likely without them even knowing. Someone in Men of Midas is bugging our guys. He bugged someone in Oakneil, and now turned to bug someone else here."
"Why would he do it like that?"
"Why not? It allows him to leak information for the Justicars without jeopardizing himself much, and it continually throws us off. With the bug constantly switching between the outposts it'd be hard to guess that we have a leak, and more likely that we'd end up thinking that it's simply random and coincidental."
"So… how do we act?"
"First, we need to find our current leak. He denies us from doing anything without running into the Justicars. Hopefully, once we track him down, we can find some clues to the identity of our real rat." Arkaneh ran his hand through his long hair as he thought the plan out in his mind, making sure it was the right one to go with. If I choose to stick to what I know to go after the previous men who were bugged in the hope of finding any clues about our rat, it would most likely end up being a waste of time and resources. Not to mention that I'm not sure that there's even a way to track them down now. Yes… finding the current leak is the right course of action. It'll be much easier and more likely to help us. "I have a plan," Arkaneh announced. "But I'm going to need your help."
"I'm listening."
"How many guys do we have at this outpost, as of now, not including us both?"
"24 after our latest casualties."
"Alright, here's how it's going to work," Arkaneh took 4 blue pins in his hand and placed them on the map, all in various streets in the city of Ussermis, Axfield. "These 4 locations represent 4 warehouses that are currently unoccupied and are up for rent. As you can see, there's one on Grove Street, one on Brine Street, one on Park Street and one on Dakin Street, so none of them is far from another. We take our 24 men and split them into 4 groups of 6. Each group would break into a different warehouse and wait there."
"Wait there for what? What are we going to tell them?"
"Well, how long has it been since our last gun trade with Code Sanguinary?"
"Over a month or so."
"Then I guess we can just tell them that they're there to receive guns that we already paid for from Blackburn's men."
"Alright."
"Now here's the catch: one of those groups is going to have our current leaker in it, but if the Justicars hear through him about his group's location, they may not risk attacking them, for fear of losing their inside guy. Instead, each group is going to be told that it's a backup unit on standby while a different group will be carrying out the gun deal in another location nearby. That way, the Justicars will surely jump on the opportunity to take out that other group along with Blackburn's men."
"That's very clever." Griffiths seemed impressed.
"We'll tell the Grove Street group about the Brine Street group being the dealers, the Brine group will hear the same about the Park group and so on. Each group will only be aware of one other group, so when the Justicars attack one of the groups, we'll know that the group who knew about them has our rat."
"And what will we do once we know that? How will we know which one in that group of six is our guy?"
"We'll worry about that later."
"Well, it's a good plan you got there, but…" Griffiths inched closer to Arkaneh with a menacing look. "What about our brothers' safety, eh?"
"I already thought about that," Arkaneh reassured him, taking a step back. "With Talimay gone, you're running Oakneil, right?"
"That’s right," Griffiths sighed as if he hated to be reminded of that fact.
"Then I need you to take some men from their outpost, and place them somewhere in between the warehouses, so they'll be close reinforcements to whatever group will need them."
Griffiths seemed to be thinking for a moment. "I'll need a few hours to set that up."
"Very well. Once you do, I'll make sure to split our guys into groups and brief each one. I'll have to send each group right away so they don’t end up spilling any information to another group, which will ruin the whole plan."
"Alright, I'll let you know when I'm ready."
Arkaneh stepped out from Griffiths's office and walked outside of the factory, in need of some fresh air. It was drizzling outside, yet Arkaneh didn’t mind. He let the light rain wash over him as if it could wash away his sins and crimes. He looked at the cloudy sky and pictured Elina staring down at him. Just a bit more. I'm not as far from my goals as I was before. I already got the lieutenant's attention, like I wanted. Hopefully, I'll reach my real target soon… Reus. Not long now. I'm sure I'll be meeting my great ringleader soon enough. He took out a cigarette pack from his pocket and lit one in his mouth. Arkaneh rarely smoked. He considered the habit foul and awful, yet at rare times of need, when feeling stressed or upset, he'd light one to calm himself down, even though he knew in his mind that it was purely a psychological effect.
The skies were painted almost entirely gray, casting a dark, depressing aura over the city of Ravenwey Burrows. Those skies… Arkaneh's memory quickly sprang into action. I remember… those nights after Elina died, when I lay in a hospital bed… Edrimer and Uncle Jeremy consistently tried to encourage me, raise my spirits, but… I was a lost cause. I don’t blame them for not being able to help me. No one could help me at the time. The only one who could was dead. Every night I would crawl out of that pesky bed, dressed in a patient's gown and an IV plugged into my arm, and sit outside the hospital, on a bench, under skies just like these. I remember thinking that the skies looked so sad. It was as if they were crying in my name. But now… now I just don’t care… the skies can cry as much as they want. I'm sure as hell not the only one they should cry for.
He heard footsteps behind him. A young looking man appeared next to him, wearing a black t-shirt and torn jeans. He had short, brown hair that looked messy and frizzled. A golden mask and set of gloves hung on his belt while the golden shoes were already on his feet. Arkaneh didn’t know him, nor did he felt that he wanted to.
"Got a smoke for me, man?" the young man asked.
"Sure," Arkaneh replied in a cold manner, handing him a cigarette and lighting it for him. His hopes that the man would leave upon getting his smoke vanished as he kept standing there next to him, blowing puffs of smoke into the air.
"You're one of the newer ones, aren’t you?" the boy asked.
"Yeah," Arkaneh once again replied in a monotonic voice.
"Don’t worry, I'm not going to call you a 'Tenderfoot' if that’s what you're worried about."
He looks so young, Arkaneh thought. "How long have you been a member?" he asked him.
"About a year."
"How old are you?" Arkaneh seemed puzzled.
"17."
"So… you mean you joined Men of Midas when you were…?"
"16 or so, yeah." It only came as half a surprise to Arkaneh. As outrageous and shocking as it was to hear it, he knew that cases like this one, of people who turn to mob gangs at a very early age, weren't that rare in many parts of the country.
"What about your parents?"
"They left me when I was little. Grew up in an orphanage." Another fact that should shock me, yet it doesn’t. He's a NewGen, and like many other NewGens, he falls into that high percentage of children who've been abandoned by their parents for lack of financial ability to support them. "I'm Raymond, by the way," he said.
"Arkaneh." The two shook hands. "Raymond? Isn’t that an OldGen name?"
"Yeah. My mother named me after her own father before she abandoned me."
"I see." How ironic. A kid with an OldGen name, yet with all the features of a NewGen. No parents, no education probably, and turned to crime. "I never liked the concept of giving children OldGen names," Arkaneh admitted. "I once read that people tend to do that as a way of trying to preserve the way things were back in their days. It's pathetic. The world is nowhere near the way it was 40 or 50 years ago. Naming kids with names from those times won't change the rest of the world. Those people are ignorant. They're too stupid and blind to see that nothing is ever going to be the same as before. It only gets worse. And we get worse with it."
"Yeah, well…" Raymond finished his cigarette quickly enough. "We all want to be stupid and blind sometimes. Don’t you agree?" Arkaneh just stared back at him. "I mean, you're right, don’t get me wrong, but… if all we ever know is despair and misery, then… what kind of life is that?"
For the first time in a long while, Arkaneh found himself amused. In a crowd of dimwits, Raymond seemed to be the first one in the outpost to show any sign of intelligence. "Perhaps you're right," said Arkaneh. "You seem smart enough. Why didn’t you finish school?"
"I dropped out very early. Decided it wasn’t going to help me much. Working for Mallistrom seemed much more profitable." The same conclusion too many people reach to these days.
"I wish I could argue with that notion, but… I guess this is a reasonable case these days."
"What about you? What brought you into here?"
Arkaneh looked up at the sky. He knew that the answer laid there. "Life brought me here," he summarized his case.
"It must have been a shitty life, then," said Raymond.
"Not always. For a time, it was the best life I could ask for."
